ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2016
An active inference theory of allostasis and interoception in depression.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 218 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
218 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Interoception in self-harm and suicide: a scoping review and meta-analysis.Nature human behaviour · 2026Pooled it
- Neural correlates of altered interoception in depressive and anxiety disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The cerebellum plays more than one role in the dysregulation of appetite: Review of structural evidence from typical and eating disorder populations.Brain and behavior · 2023Pooled it
- Adaptogens on Depression-Related Outcomes: A Systematic Integrative Review and Rationale of Synergism with Physical Activity.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- Neuroscience of Virtual Reality: From Virtual Exposure to Embodied Medicine.Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking · 2019Pooled it
- Acute subanesthetic ketamine-induced effects on the mismatch negativity and their relationship to early and sustained treatment response in major depressive disorder.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2025Trial
- Intrinsic functional neurocircuitry associated with treatment response to transdiagnostic CBT in bipolar disorder with anxiety.Journal of affective disorders · 2018Trial
- A dense-sampling investigation of interoceptive variation across the menstrual cycle: the Cyclic Hormones and Interoception with Repeated Profiling (CHIRP) Study.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Computational phenotyping of effort-based decision-making in type-2 diabetes on and off semaglutide.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Review
- Errors or Adaptations? A Critical Review of Predictive Processing in Psychiatry.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- A dual-pathway dysregulation in prefrontal-habenular circuits mediates stress susceptibility.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Exposure to false cardiac feedback alters pain perception and anticipatory cardiac frequency.eLife · 2026Article
- Reduced sensitivity to tactile stimuli associated with physical and mental disorders: A monozygotic twin study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Emotions Are Folk Concepts in a Predicting Brain.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Brain Changes Underlying Irritable Bowel Syndrome Symptom Improvement in Response to Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.Neurogastroenterology and motility · 2026Article
- Sleep in Functional Motor Disorders: A Case-Control Polysomnographic Study.Journal of sleep research · 2026Article
- Training-Fuel Coupling (TFC): A Molecular Sports Nutrition Framework for Energy Availability, Chrono-Nutrition, and Performance Optimization.Nutrients · 2026Review
158 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In this paper, we integrate recent theoretical and empirical developments in predictive coding and active inference accounts of interoception (including the Embodied Predictive Interoception Coding model) with working hypotheses from the theory of constructed emotion to propose a biologically plausible unified theory of the mind that places metabolism and energy regulation (i.e. allostasis), as well as the sensory consequences of that regulation (i.e. interoception), at its core. We then consider the implications of this approach for understanding depression. We speculate that depression is a disorder of allostasis, whose myriad symptoms result from a 'locked in' brain that is relatively insensitive to its sensory context. We conclude with a brief discussion of the ways our approach might reveal new insights for the treatment of depression.This article is part of the themed issue 'Interoception beyond homeostasis: affect, cognition and mental health'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.